This recipe is nothing short of humble… Martha Stewart’s website even went so far to name the recipe “Perfect” in its title. Fortunately, that title is well deserved with this recipe that lived up to the hype.

I was on a conference call the night I was making this dish and everything was ready as I was jumping on a call with China as I dished out some for my wife to enjoy and put the rest back in the oven to keep warm until my call was over.

From the family room, I heard my wife shout “this is the BEST mac & cheese you have ever made!”

Sounded great though I was disappointed as I was on my call for a good hour until I finally finished work and dished out some for myself. My wife was right.

The sauce is cheesy rich almost fondue like sauce that is created while the noodles are cooking.

I decided to divert from the recipe a little with the breadcrumbs. I kept the crust on and proceeded to heat the bread crumbles in a saute pan with a little butter to give it some crunch, being careful not to burn. I then took the bread and put in my min food processor in two batches and reduced it down to small bread crumbs leaving some slightly larger pieces in it.

I started blogging in 2005 when I started writing about Knowledge Management. It was a fairly obscure blog that I used as a way to increase my professional profile. I have no idea whether 1 person or a 1,000 people read it since there was no Google Analytics. I ended that blog when I left the pharma industry in 2007.

A year later, I started a blog I did for five years that still lives today, but is dormant. Again my focus was professional with the Auto Marketing Blog that analyzed marketing efforts from automotive brands. It was a fulfilling experience as my writing led to many opportunities including getting quoted in AdAge and ClickZ, even if AdAge did misspell my name.

I have three active blogs today. One covers my love of Gas Station Tacos and another just started last month, The Digital Strategy Quarterly is where I write quarterly diving deep into a chosen digital marketing topic. The third active blog is the one I got to think about a lot the last four days: Sustainable Dad.

There were a couple iterations of this blog. It started briefly as a restaurant review blog called Detroit Eats that quickly modified to the Considered Cook. I did the blog mostly to keep track of recipes I made and wanted to have viewable on my mobile phone, in case I was wondering what ingredients I needed.

Sustainable Dad came about in 2011 when I rebranded the site and started writing a few things about being a parent. Even to this day the blog is 90% my adventures in home cooking and only about 10% parenting. So I don’t fully identify with what I went to last week – my first dad blogger conference, Dad 2.0 Summit.

I had wanted to attend last year, but came down with the flu. Fortunately, this year’s conference was close by in San Francisco and sickness was not overtaking our home. Plus I had multiple reasons to go: a desire to improve my blogging, but also my day job leading influencer programs for some of our clients.

The Summit was different from what I expected.

This was my first dad blogger conference, but not my first blogger or social media conference. I have spoken at BlogWorld (now called New Media Expo), SxSW, Social Media Explorer, to name a few. I have also attended SheStreams, Type-A Blogger, and BlogHer. So I have a lot of reference points to pull from.

The talks in the main room every morning centered more around public policy, employment law, and what it means to be dad in today’s culture. I’m a dad and never really thought that much about it. I provide for my family, try to be a good husband, and hopefully raise our boys to be respectful, kind and intelligent. I don’t really care if I get credit for being a dad; how dads are portrayed in the media; or if moms get more cultural respect as parents.

We even ate at LucasFilm thanks to Lego

I’m by no means a traditional dad/husband. I take the boys to school, cook the meals in our house and help with cleaning. I also try to help out with some schools stuff, but my wife is a stay at home mom and does a good chunk of the parenting, since I am the sole income in our household.

I don’t look down at stay-at-home dads nor do I expect women to be stay-at-home moms. And while not popular with most of the attendees at the conference, I personally would be running for the door to find a job if I had to stay home every day. It’s just not me. I love my kids; I just enjoy my work and career. If being home raising kids is your thing, more power to you.

And that’s what most of Dad 2.0 Summit was: Power to the Dads.

There were some roundtables in the afternoons that did talk about content and monetization, but they were a much smaller piece of the conference. It would’ve been fascinating to learn more from the mom community, which has built such an impressive presence online, and how blogger networks are transforming. The topic of video and influence is massive with a ton of changes as blogs wane and social sites like Instagram, Pinterest, and YouTube gain traction with brands. How can dads get their messages out better and how can they stay ahead of content trends online to impart their stories?

Blogging is a rich topic as is parenting. It was fantastic hearing the stories dads shared and what academics are learning about the changing role of dads in American society. We also had an amazing group of sponsors who engaged the attendees including Hot Wheels (client though I wasn’t involved in this effort), Kia, Dove Men’s Care, PicMonkey, Stok grills, Best Buy, Nerf, and Ryobi tools just to name a few. Oh and thanks to Lego for bringing us out to Lucas Films. The 10 year old me was blown away with that experience!

Power tools. We got to use a lot of power tools.

Unfortunately, I left without much to take back to be a better blogger and likely that wasn’t the point, because I did come away with what it means to be a better dad. I met some amazing dads who are making a difference and breaking down stereotypes. These are great men who are moving the shift from mom as the sole caregiver to it being a joint parental effort. That change was very clear at Dad 2.0 Summit and was THE takeaway from the event.

My personal thought as I left Saturday was that I’m definitely more a food blogger than a dad blogger and while I too have been breaking down stereotypes for over 18 years of marriage, I just don’t have the passion most of these guys have; rather, I do but it’s around making the perfect veal masala or Bolognese sauce.

“That’s the worst! I will never ever eat that again in my whole life!”

Famous last words from my soon to be 9 year old son. Oscar, our other child, didn’t like it either. So this was a complete fail if you are going to try it on kids or at least my kids. Maybe you’ll have better luck than we did at the dinner table. Fortunately, they had some “peace noodles” from Annie’s Organics. Oh well, we tried.

What they rejected my wife and I enjoyed. This is light, summer dish made for a great tasting main course with some rustic bread we picked up from the South Pasadena Farmers Market. You can use this recipe for lunch, dinner and probably even breakfast. The combination of strawberries, cucumbers and spinach made for a light but filling meal.

Combine it with some mozzarella cheese and you have an excellent way to enjoy quinoa, that is if you’re older than 10 and don’t think quinoa is the yuckiest thing on the planet.

The adventurous might also want to experiment with the dressing. The recipe is a simple honey balsamic vinegar dressing. A citrus based dressing would work will too and is something I will try next time when I make this again. Considering it’s 80 degrees in Los Angeles in February, I won’t have to wait until summer…

I used to love P.F. Chang’s when it first came on the scene, but over the years my desire for it trailed off. I went a few years ago and the dishes are just too salty like a lot of chain restaurants. So when I came across a recipe from another food blogger I enjoy – Kelly at Just a Taste, I figured it was time to bring back Mongolian Beef to my dinner choices.

This is a simple dish any new cook can make and there are some good tips any good Chinese food lover will want to take note. I’ve used corned starch coating since becoming aware of that technique back in the early 1990s when a friend shared their favorite stir fry recipe.

There is a lot of brown sugar, so please don’t consider this a healthy dish. There’s a 3/4 cup of brown sugar in the sauce! So I wouldn’t make this every week or even every month.

I also added broccoli when I reheated some leftovers the next day, so feel free to mix it up with some other vegetable options.

We are gamers. That’s why we were high-fiving each other all week counting down the days for the Neon Retro Arcade to open last week. It’s a new arcade that opened in Old Town Pasadena. It’s full of classic arcade games like Mario Bros, Q-bert, Frogger and many more.

You buy unlimited play for $10 a hour. So for $30 the boys and I went game to game playing tons of video games I hadn’t played in about 30 years and they had never played before. How did a bunch of 8-bit games excite two 8 year olds? They loved it! They had a great time playing the classics. Plus how awesome is it not having to worry about running out of quarters?

We can’t wait to come back. We all had a blast taking a break from our systems at home. Neon Retro Arcade is soon adding a menu thanks to the restaurant next store. Just note there are no alcoholic drinks due to city code.

If you find the time, take a trip to Neon Retro Arcade and see if you can beat my high score on Frogger, though I’m sure it no longer stands.

It’s the Fifth Anniversary of my automotive Super Bowl ads analysis with fellow journalist Melanie Batenchuk from BeCarChic. We took a look at all the car ads that ran during last night’s game. There were a couple standouts for sure.

The big theme across many advertisers was the emphasis on dads. Unlike prior years where puppies and babies ruled, this year was clearly the year of the dad in parenting. Central to that was Nissan’s #WithDad campaign that brought the idea to life in a 90-second spot, Nissan’s first Super Bowl ad in 18 years. The story was told using one of my favorite childhood songs (yes, I’m that old) Harry Chapin’s ‘Cats In the Cradle’. Sure it is a bit awkward considering Chapin died in a car crash in real life, but the song does tell about that distance of father and son which the ad does touch on; though, in a different way than the song.

Remove the real life history of Chapin and the ad does hold up as it is about the bound of father and son which does resonate with Nissan’s attempt at celebrating dads.

My wife bought me a new wood cutting board for Christmas and I found the perfect recipe to break it in. It does make the vegetables more delectable than my bright green plastic cutting boards. And while I don’t think I can attribute the new cutting board to this, but this recipe turned out amazing and maybe, just maybe, slicing the vegetables and chorizo on the new cutting surface may have played a small role.

Besides exchanging gifts, the whole family exchanged germs too. The whole Christmas break was spent with a family of four sick people and what better way to get over an illness than a hearty warm soup. Plus the addition of some spicy chorizo sausage in for good measure.

Kale is helpful too and the starch in the potatoes helped to fill stomaches that weren’t feeling all too good to enjoy a large meal. This dish also doesn’t use a lot of ingredients but you wouldn’t know it with the abundant flavor it provides.

I found a simple recipe that at first I found too simple, but gave it a try and stuck to the recipe word for word. I’m glad I did.

The soup doesn’t need any tweaking. It has plenty of flavor and while I fought the desire to add some carrots or more onions, I decided to see how it went without my modifications.

My advice: Don’t mess with it. Just make the recipe as is and enjoy a delicious soup.

I love a good casserole. Unlike the casseroles of my 1970-80s childhood, casseroles are far better than the tuna and enchilada casseroles of the past. Take for example this delicious combination using fresh broccoli and quinoa.

The dish also uses shredded cheddar cheese and just a little amount of milk and mayo which leaves a dish that focuses the flavor mostly on the broccoli, and that’s a good thing.

We enjoyed it with a simple side salad for a complete meal. This works great if you’re into Meatless Mondays or Meatless whatever day.

Christmas Day is a perfect day for a pot roast and especially one I have had on my short list for most of 2014. I loved the simplicity of The Pioneer Woman’s Pot Roast recipe I had ran across searching Pinterest one day. I added some potatoes to it since I like a little more than just carrots and onions. I simply cook potatoes in a small saucepan for 10 minutes in boiling water and add it to the dutch oven in the last 30 minutes before the recipe is done.

I followed the rest of the recipe as stated on The Pioneer Woman’s blog. You definitely want to use fresh herbs for this one, so don’t forget to pick some up at the market.

The combination of red wine and beef stock makes a beautiful gravy. This is a perfect pot roast and pretty hard to screw up. Good luck and Happy New Year!

Nothing says Christmas like making Tamales. At least that’s the case for a lot of families, but not ours. I wasn’t raised in a house that made tamales for the holidays. Nope. Instead we made spritz cookies and as a kid I would sneak into the garage freezer and eat a few just about everyday. Eventually my mom caught on and made an extra batch knowing her oldest son was eating a few as the holidays approached.

Back to the tamales.

This was my first attempt at making tamales. I have a few places I love to go for them including Evie’s Tamales in Mexican Village in Detroit. When I worked for DTE Energy we used to go their for lunch and often buy a dozen to take home. Simple and delicious pork filled tamales are always a favorite. I do have a place here in South Pasadena, California I go to and order tamales from. Grass Roots Natural Market sells tamales for the holidays and they also sell mesa for making your own at home.

I ordered a dozen from Grass Roots for Christmas Eve but also bought some mesa to try it myself. One of my favorite tacos lately is the chicken tinga taco at Guisados. I decided to make my own chicken tinga and while I still have a lot of work before I master Guisados’ version, what resulted here was pretty damn good and both my wife and I agreed they were the best tamales we ever had.

So here is my attempt at tamales. One tip I found out after making them is to make sure you use the smoother side of the corn husk to wrap your masa and filling in. The ridged side prevents the tamale from easily peeling the husk away.

Bring water to a boil in a large pot. Remove from heat and submerge corn husks into the water and let it them sit for a hour.

First boil some water and poach the chicken breasts in boiling water for 12 minutes. Remove and shred. You can also buy a rotisserie chicken from the store and shred the meat to use for this dish.

To make the tinga sauce, bring the tomatoes and tomatillo to a boil in water then reduce to a gentile boil for 10 minutes. Remove from water and place in a food processor. Blend until smooth with no chunks. Meanwhile, heat the oil in a pan and add the onion and garlic cooking for 3 minutes until translucent. Remove from pan and add into food processor. Add the chipotle, 1 tablespoon of chipotle sauce, and spices to the food processor and blend until smooth. Taste and add more chipotle sauce if you feel it is not to your desired heat.

Put chicken and tinga sauce into a bowl and mix. In another bowl add your masa and in another bowl add the crumbled cojita cheese. Now take your corn husks and spread some masa into it then add about 3 tablespoons of the chicken tinga mixture. Sprinkle with cheese and fold the tamale placing it into a steamer.

Finish making the rest of the tamales and steam for 1 hour. Serve with your favorite side dish.